Dozens of cuvées, 3 types of slate, one vineyard (and the genius who farms it).

When you walk out of Clemens Busch’s home, you make a left, take a handful of steps until you reach the Mosel River – and you can’t miss the towering hillside parcels across the water. In that quick moment, you realize: to understand Clemens Busch is to understand the mighty Marienburg vineyard.

It’s an imposing, jagged hillside above the Mosel—practically glued together by bands of different slate soils (specifically the grey, blue, and red varieties). Each shapes the vines uniquely, and Busch famously views these subsoil types as an opportunity to message the intensity of those differences, bottling the purest slate parcels separately.

Despite the wines being made the same way, the differences between each cuvée are staggering: some tensile (piercing, even), while others are as broad-shouldered and muscular as the Mosel gets.

Some quick CliffsNotes for the uninitiated: Since 1975, Clemens Busch is the 5th gen winemaker at his family's estate, which he runs along with his wife, Rita. In the 1980s, Clemens and Rita were some of the first in Germany to convert to organic farming, and their 21 hectares are fully biodynamic since 2005. More than half of their parcels are located in Marienburg, a fascinating vineyard that represents a collection of parcels strung together under one vineyard designation in '71. But, despite the single designation, the parcels within could not be more diverse.

Clemens' hillside, with parcels so crystal clear

The wines are truly a soil study in slate: that rocky, water-filtering soil that famously retains and reflects heat into the vines. With three striking shades of slate, Clemens bottles (and labels) by color here:

Grey Slate (with grey capsule): the most dominant of the three slate colors in Marienburg, with the most steely, stony mineral expression. In a word: resolute.

Red Slate (with red capsule): the most clay-heavy variety of slate, which makes more generous, broad-shouldered wines. In a word: thunderous.

Blue Slate (with blue capsule): the most electric of the three slate types, for high-wire, floral expressions. In a word: crackling.

As with his farming, Clemens' cellar work is precise, down to a science but not for science's sake; this is simply what he has honed to give crystal clear expressions of each parcel, vintage after vintage. His wines famously go through malolactic fermentation, in large cask. And like many of the best producers, Clemens picks the sweet wines first, forgoing later harvests in favor of Kabi and Spätlese styles that remain refreshingly crunchy.

A true cross-section of this very special hillside, the below represents the first of two annual releases; featuring his GGs, an absolute sleeper of a Kabinett, and a trio of entry-level wines from each slate variety:

Grey Slate:

2024 Clemens Busch Riesling Trocken, Mosel, $26
One of the great values in wine, and the only bottling which has a touch of fruit from the other side of the river (opposite Marienburg) blended in. 

2023 Weingut Clemens Busch vom Grauen Schiefer Riesling Trocken Mosel, $35
From a blend of grey-slated GG sites, for an incredibly balanced expression of the stony slate variety.

2024 Clemens Busch Marienburg Riesling Kabinett, Mosel, $42
From the original 2 hectares farmed by the Busch family for 5 generations now. Gorgeously juicy Kabi with push and pull between the smoky grey slate minerality and expressive orchard fruit.

2023 Clemens Busch Marienburg Riesling Spätlese, Mosel, $45
Also from the family's original 2 hectares, an even more amped up version of the Kabinett above. An incredible value in Spätlese.

2022 Clemens Busch Riesling Marienburg Raffes, GL, Mosel, $190
A special micro bottling from the best terraces in Marienburg's 'Falkenlay' parcel, selected out from the rest of the parcel for particular intensity.

2022 Clemens Busch Riesling Marienburg Felsterrasse, GL, Mosel, $190
From an incredibly steep parcel in Marienburg, 'Felsterrasse,' fermented dry. On the lush and saline end of grey-slated trocken Riesling.

2023 Clemens Busch Riesling Marienburg Felsterrasse, GL, Mosel, $215
From an incredibly steep parcel in Marienburg, 'Felsterrasse,' fermented dry. On the lush and saline end of grey-slated trocken Riesling.

Red Slate:

2023 Weingut Clemens Busch vom Roten Schiefer Riesling Trocken Mosel, $35
From a blend of two red-slated sites, for a robust and textured expression of the clay-heavy slate variety.

Blue Slate:

2023 Weingut Clement Busch Vom Blauen Schiefer Riesling, Mosel, $45
From a single parcel 'Fahrlay,' a second bottling from the otherwise GG site (the latter of which is below in two different vintages). With a floral touch from the searingly mineral blue slate here.

2022 Clemens Busch, Riesling Marienburg Fahrlay Terassen GG, $110
One of two parcel-specific bottlings Clemens makes from Fahrlay, from the steepest blue-slated terraces here whose thicker-skinned grapes throw more phenolics and texture into the wine.

2023 Clemens Busch, Riesling Marienburg Fahrlay Terassen GG, $125
One of two parcel-specific bottlings Clemens makes from Fahrlay, from the steepest blue-slated terraces here whose thicker-skinned grapes throw more phenolics and texture into the wine.

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